Posted
by
Soulskillon Saturday February 04, 2012 @06:12AM
from the long-term-casualties dept.

Harperdog writes "Hugh Gusterson has written a devastating article about what has happened to Iraq's once great university system, and puts most of the blame for its total collapse on the U.S. Quoting: 'While American troops guarded the Ministries of Oil and the Interior but ignored cultural heritage sites, looters ransacked the universities. For example, the entire library collections at the University of Baghdad's College of Arts and at the University of Basra were destroyed. The Washington Post's Rajiv Chandresekara described the scene at Mustansiriya University in 2003: "By April 12, the campus of yellow-brick buildings and grassy courtyards was stripped of its books, computers, lab equipment and desks. Even electrical wiring was pulled from the walls. What was not stolen was set ablaze, sending dark smoke billowing over the capital that day."'"

Mainly Naomi Klein, who is known for just making stuff up as she goes along.Seriously though, the primary thing to blame for the end of Iraq's universities is Islam, because it was what fuelled the anger of the looters (against the un-Islamic curricula and against the education of women), because it is what makes Iraq inhospitable to science now and because it is what is preventing the Iraqi government from funding the building of new ones even though there's plenty of oil money available.The only thing the US can be blamed for is naïveté. At least the military top and the administration had this attidude of "muslims are just like us, except they call God Allah". This is also why things turned out so shitty when the US didn't keep the oppressive military rule in place and why Iraq's democratic project is coming apart at the seams. Most of Iraq's problems were essentially caused by the US top refusing to do their homework before they went in.Then again, the only way to prevent all this would have been to institute a tight (and expensive) military rule followed by a thorough (and expensive) re-education program. I can see the headlines now.... Maybe the current situation is as good as it can get. The US went in there to prevent Iraq from being a pain in the butt and I think it helped. It's a shame we cannot keep people from each other's throats but even the US isn't powerful enough to do that everywhere on the globe, so yeah. Reality sucks.

The Arab-Muslim world has the highest rates of illiteracy on Earth. Like everything else, the Arabs will of course blame that on America and the Jews, rather than taking a long hard look at themselves.

Has the irony anvil hit you on the head yet? In a thread thick with ridiculous generalizations about Islam and Arab countries, with (as of this writing) no contributions from people who might actually live there or have lived there (partially, but only partial, credit for having been deployed there) we get the voice of "expertise" based on limited experience pointed back to Americans - and you balk.

Seriously though, the primary thing to blame for the end of Iraq's universities is Islam.

This is a good opportunity to put Occam's razor to use. We know that in sudden, widespread disruptive events people loot. It doesn't matter whether it is natural disaster, invasion, or just a neighborhood breakdown in public order. This even includes ordinary people who would not ordinarily steal. I once talked to an anthropologist whose work on a Caribbean island was interrupted by an unusually powerful hurricane. There was looting, but several days later many people sheepishly returned things they'd stolen, unable to explain why they'd taken them in the panic.

Looting is probably an instinctive human response to the rapid onset of environmental or social disorder. But we don't have to accept that. We only have to accept that disasters cause looting. Introducing the hypothetical intellectual backwardness of Islam simply multiplies causes unnecessarily. The looting would have occurred whether or not Islam was as you characterize it. The looting is neither proof nor disproof of your notions about Islam. Your notions of Islam have no bearing on the looting, even if you had actual evidence (which you don't) of the motivations of the crowd.

Now as for the looting of important cultural institutions being an intended consequence, Occam's razor applies here as well. The administration's general lack of preparation or even awareness of basic facts about Iraq that was evident in the aftermath of the invasion. That is enough to explain the lack of steps to protect universities and libraries. To suggest that was part of the invasion suggests an awareness of the importance of intellectual inquiry that was not otherwise evidenced in any of the administration's other behavior. This was a president who proudly said he made decisions by gut instead of reason, as if that were an admirable thing. It is more plausible that it never occurred to the Bush Administration that a country like Iraq *had* important cultural institutions .

It really makes no difference whether the looting was an intended consequence or not -- either practically or ethically. Undertaking drastic, irreversible actions fatal to so many is not excused by ignorance. Doing that in unexamined ignorance is arguably worse than causing many of the things that happened after the invasion intentionally. Arguably somebody who *wanted* those things would have to be sick. Somebody who is just intellectually lazy deserves no pity. The uncaring deserve less pity than the honestly depraved.

This is a good opportunity to put Occam's razor to use. We know that in sudden, widespread disruptive events people loot.

They loot libraries? After a disaster I might loot a store, or an abandoned police station/military post, I guess, but a library? For books? "Hey, its the end of the world! Let's go snag some calculus textbooks!"

Well, sure. It's not like people sit down and ask themselves, "what are the highest value places for me to loot today?" It's an instinctive behavior. The anthropologist I mentioned said that people were often mystified by the things they took, because they had no use or practical value.

I think looting libraries makes more sense if you look at the behavior in terms of its statistical benefit to a displaced population (i.e. like you were in charge of natural selection). If your goal is to have as many people in a community survive, you don't want them all hunting for the same optimal loot to take. You want everyone to go straight to the nearest thing of value and carry it off. They can sort it out later, there will be more diverse loot, and you won't have a lot redundant effort with everyone looting the same few things.

It's also possible that in a fight or flight situation, grabbing stuff is a low marginal cost addition to flight that occasionally pays off. That would be consistent with the way looting follows in the *wake* of the disaster. Imagine a village being attacked in a cattle raid. In the early stages they grab their weapons and secure their valuables. If they lose the fight, in the later stages of the raid (i.e. the looting and raping stage) it makes sense for the losers to grab anything they can and run away.

Two problems:1. Most of them didn't want to get rid of Saddam, they just wanted a better way of life, just like in case of Arab Spring. He may have been oppressive, but Maliki and his cohorts make Saddam look like a mother Theresa.2. What the country was rid of was power structure and infrastructure. Once that is gone, it doesn't matter what source country originally was. It can be Iraq, Russia, USA, France or any other. Without those two things the country will slide into chaos, anarchy and eventual civil war which will decide who gets to form the new power structure in the country and how that power structure will function.

Again, at that point, it will not matter which country it was. This is the cold reality of the human nature, shown throughout history countless times, and one of the things that truly unites our species as one species, in spite of differences in morphology and culture.

You're missing the point by a mile and then some, mainly because you're stuck in your Western-born point of view with no other reference. To us, Arab Spring was literally marketed (as in advertised in news) as a "democratic movement" in sense that democratic = better life.

Those of us without the lack of long term memory induced by too much TV vividly remember what happens when a country that had to be on receiving end of Western diplomacy for decades or even centuries gets a democracy. We saw it in Iran, we saw it in Gaza, we saw it in several African countries and so on. It ends up being anti-Western for one simple reason - when you're been pounded into the poverty and watched the pompous rich Westerners and their marionette rulers get all respect and wealth in your country while you get none, you know who to hate.

And hate is a far better driver of poll numbers then any other emotion. Just look at US presidential campaign focus and you'll see it's exactly the same regardless of the nation. It's yet another aspect of human nature we really like to deny, even after it bites us in the ass. Repeatedly.

When you invade a country, you have to take responsibility for all the consequences.

Now if that is not enough for you how about these juicy pieces, "The new head of the Coalition Provisional Authority of Iraq, Paul Bremer removed members of the Ba'ath Party from senior management positions at all public institutions. Since one had to join the Ba'ath Party, in order to get ahead in Hussein's Iraq, this order had the effect of removing most of Iraq's senior university administrators and professors overnight" (stupid is as stupid does). ". "Control over Iraq's universities now lay in the hands of Andrew Erdmann, a 36-year-old American, well-connected in Republican Party patronage networks, who was senior adviser to Iraq's Ministry of Education. Erdmann spoke no Arabic and had no experience in university administration (ohh look political appointees getting paid and stealing millions). "Erdmann was succeeded by John Agresto, the former president of St. Johns College in New Mexico and a conservative opponent of multicultural education.He too spoke no Arabic and, when the Post's Chandresekaran asked what he had read to prepare for his assignment, Iraq's new top educator said he decided to read no books at all about Iraq -- so he would have an "open mind." (was that open or empty". "USAID did set aside $25 million to help revitalize Iraqi universities -- but the money went to American universities to do curriculum development (seriously WTF, ohh yeah, ignorant foreignors don't now how to set curriculum).

So a country was invaded, was tossed to the wolves local and imported, corruption was rife local and imported but hey it was all the Iraqi's fault. The US had nothing to do with it, even though the triggered it and mismanaged it. Why did it fail, mainly because all the Americans sent to manage it were only concerned with cashing in and did you give a rat's arse about actually doing anything constructive.

In fact there *was* looting after the earthquake ( citation [webcitation.org]). However the authorities moved quickly to quell the looting, before the looting ignited a vicious circle. Which brings us right back to the predictability of the looting response and the *effectiveness* of steps taken to restrain it.

We know that in sudden, widespread disruptive events people loot. It doesn't matter whether it is natural disaster, invasion, or just a neighborhood breakdown in public order.

I am sorry but that is a false assertion. It is not a human condition, it is a societal condition. Almost all cultures, mine included, have the idea of "get what you can any way you can get it". They hold the individual above all else. In effect most people are anarchists held in check by laws and controls. When those laws and controls weaken the anarchy comes out. If in one's mind the only thing that stops one from taking someone else's property is the law then when the law can not be enforced one will take it. One the other hand, if the reason one does not take something is the simple fact that it does not belong to you is a different issue. The presence or absence of law enforcement does not change that criteria and one would not take the item in either condition. It has nothing to do with society but with one's individual view of the world.

There is at least one society on earth where that is not anarchist at heart. When a disaster happened there was no looting, no rioting and the people obeyed what little authority that was there. That society was Japan during the last tsunami.

Another point is that I am a human and would never loot and hoard. I may recouver resources necessary for survival but I would use them to help as many people as possible and not hoard them as most looters do.

In the end it is all about the lack of personal honour, personal responsibility, personal control and a reliance on the state to keep one's caveman instincts in check. Japan has evolved beyond that. In those aspect I wish that my society had as well.

Again it is simply not true there was *no* looting in Japan after earthquake and tsunami. There was but it was eclipsed in the news by the enormity of the natural disaster and the nuclear situation. The authorities moved quickly and efficiently to stop the looting before it became a secondary disaster.

Another point is that I am a human and would never loot and hoard.

I hope so, but you can't really credibly make that claim until you've found yourself in the kind of situation where people loot. But in all probability you won't loot. So far as I know I can't think of any instance of looting where *most* of the people in the population were involved.

As for myself, I am certain that I am less likely to loot than some, and reasonably confident I'm less likely than most. However, I'm far from certain I would *never* loot under *any* circumstances, no matter how desperate, fearful or angry I got. Haven't *you* ever done or said something under the influence of anger or fear that you would not have after sober consideration? If so, you're a better human being than I am, or indeed any that I have ever met.

Well, we're talking past each other. I was responding to the lack of epistemological justification in drawing broad and overarching inferences about societies from events like mob looting. I just don't think you can draw the conclusion that if looting happens in event a of Culture A, but not in event b of Culture B, that it's automatically because the people in Culture B are virtuous and those in A are not. I certainly don't think you can impute an opinion to *everyone* in a society from the actions of a f

The word "looting" covers a number of different things, from organized pillaging to pure mob behavior. Your description of looter behavior corresponds to pillaging, not the mob response to disaster.

All small point about Occam's razor. It's about not introducing explanations without being forced to do so by data. So far as I can see there are no features or cluster of features here that could only be explained by assuming Muslims hate education. In fact, I've never seen *any* evidence that Muslims in general hate education in general. I haven't even seen proof that Muslim *extremists* hate western education in particular. They're often western educated themselves. Their beef with us obviously isn't entirely rational, so we can't expect them to be consistent, but it seems mostly to be related issues of disrespecting Islam, political hypocrisy, hobnobbing with hated regimes, and moral decadence.

The US can't be held responsible for stuff everything the population chooses to do there.

I agree. But I think the US can be held responsible for the reasonably foreseeable consequences of its actions in Iraq, whether or not the people in charge actually foresaw them. If you don't think people are responsible for the foreseeable and controllable consequences of their actions, then you and I are using different.

That's about the shape of it. The anthropologist I was talking about described people who didn't have electricity in their neighborhoods returning electric appliances they'd looted. Obviously they had no intention of *using them*. As for *selling them*, the fact they risked being arrested by returning goods voluntarily suggests an unusual degree of honesty. But if they were honest folk, why did they loot in the first place?

They looted because *honesty* is a rational value, and they weren't acting rationally.

I'm not suggesting all looters everywhere are just good people in bad circumstances. I'm just saying you shouldn't overestimate the rationality of people in a mob, or ascribe the mob's behavior exclusively to the values of the surrounding culture, or even the individual members.

This is utter bullshit. The US decided to disband the Iraqi police force and military, then refused to provide security against looters or criminals because the invasion force was undermanned. Remember the LA riots? Imagine that except we got rid of the police and National Guard, then left the armories open so any moron could walk off with a bazooka. There would be instant chaos even if no one was Muslim.

The fall of Iraq was caused by the rank stupidity of the Paul Wolfowitz types.

I'm glad posters with views that twisted feel a need to post as AC and hide behind the anonymous mod system. That makes them jingoists and cowards.

The only thing the US can be blamed for is naïveté.

Acting out a pattern of violence over decades, especially for gain, is never associated with being naive. Not among the civilized or the sane.

As for making stuff up, I would put Klein's veracity against that of commentators commonly found on Wall St media outlets between 2002 and 2008. Start with yellowcake (made up), aluminum tubes (made up), photos of massed tr

Possibly the greatest military blunder off all time was coalition provisional authority order number 2 [wikipedia.org] which dismissed the Iraqi army. This action sent hundreds of thousands young unemployed trained soldiers into the hands of the various mullahs. Arguably, it was the tinder that fuel the Iraqi civil war. L. Paul Bremer [wikipedia.org], the man who committed the blunder was rewarded with the Presidential medal of Freedom.

What you're saying only applies to the STEM and other technical fields, unfortunately. Most of the fine arts and humanity subjects still rely heavily on dead trees.

Regardless of how useful these assets are to the researchers, they should definitely not fall into the hands of thefts and plunders. Even if supposing all the books, equipments, and furnitures are worthless they should still be recycled or donated away, instead of funding criminal activities.

Even at little ol' Kansas University in the middle of the plains in big ol' US of A, the library had priceless antique texts and pictures. I got a feeling that's a little more the case here. Explain how anything you said applies to those.

Agree completely. Everyone (including many in the US) seems to blame the US for everything.
Looters ransacking universities - oh, that's the fault of the US. Oh, Iranians being cantankerous - well, that's the fault of the US for proviking them. Pirates in the Indian Ocean - that's the fault of the US for not going ashore and pacifying Somalia. Problems in Somalia - that's the fault of the US for going in to Mogadishu in the 90's. Terrorists running around the World blowing innocent folks up - well, that's gotta be the fault of the US for doing nothing or too much (take your pick).

I'm a non-US citizen and see that the US gets treated as a punching bag by many (even, unfortunately, by my own countrymen). I mean, the US does enough bad stuff by itself (****ACTA!***) that there is no need to go blaming them for stuff that actually isn't their fault. I mean, how come people can't take personal responsibility for themselves and see that others also need to do the same (eg. the looters in this case). This "crying wolf" that the US is (allegedly) at fault for all the sh1t going on is getting lame (unfortunately that lameness doesn't even mean it will stop soon).

Pay attention: part of being the police is never having to say you're sorry. Especially if you're a prosecutor, you can do anything with the power you have and the worst that can happen is it doesn't work. None of it ever comes back to you.

It's true that the US sometimes gets blamed unjustly, but in this case the blame is squarely on the shoulders of the US military and government.

Iraqis had been living in poverty for over a decade due to the first Gulf war and then UN sanctions. Now, almost overnight, there is no more police, military or government. It's pretty obvious that in this type of situation people are going to loot. The same thing would happen anywhere.

As the occupying power, it is the responsibility of the US for ensuring the security of the people and the infrastructure.

The US eliminated the police and military system that provided security for the universities and everything else in Iraq. They were obliged to take over the job and provide security. A huge job. But other than securing oil fields, their efforts genuinely sucked. Their stated reasons for going in there were bogus, and the priorities made no sense. The most clear example of this is the fact that as the military rolled into Baghdad, you'd think that securing all the sites with the supposed "weapons of mass destruction" that were the reason for invading would be the #1 priority. Instead, the oil fields were promptly secured, and the military rolled right on by nuclear facilities and didn't bother to secure those sites until much later. The local Iraqis were rolling out drums of uranium yellow cake from nuclear facilities at will, with nobody to stop them. Thankfully, people weren't interested in anything nuclear, they just wanted the drums to store water, so they emptied the yellow cake onto the ground. Nobody was there to stop them.

It's pretty sad that even for the stated goal of stopping a WMD program, the US didn't properly secure relevant sites. They were too busy securing the oil. And if securing WMD sites wasn't a priority, obviously universities weren't either, but that's the point: when the US set priorities for securing the country in the aftermath of the invasion they were negligent on a grand scale.

"U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site â" surrounded by huge sand berms â" following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as drinking water cisterns."

I hate the military as much as anybody, but I don't think it's fair to take it out on the soldiers. I think most people don't really understand what they're getting into when they sign up. They sign up thinking they'll be fighting bad-guys, not blowing up innocent children to further some political agenda (or shuffling around paper-work and doing dishes, which is often the case too).

Then once they're in they try to make the best of a bad situation. There are sociopaths in the military (the same as you would

Stupidity is not a valid excuse. Each person is responsible for his or her own actions and "they told me to do it" does not take away your own responsibility. In 2003, there were 14 million people demonstrating globally against Bush's war plans, millions of those were Americans. No one was forced to be ignorant, no one was forced not to read up on the real motives behind the war and no one was forced to go around the world killing people that had never done them any harm. They did it on their own violition

Let me clarify here - I was going for funny, but it might have come out a bit homophobic instead.

I meant "then some moron repealed DADT" as "some moron inadvertently closed the easy loophole to getting out of the military", not "some moron gave those homosexuals equal rights". I usually don't like to correct or explain myself after the fact, but after reading through this a day later I sort of come across as a bit homophobic and that's not really who I am.

I would agree that there was no reason for the Iraq war, and while there are a few individuals within the US military who are scum, to call the entire US military and its members scum and criminal is an insult to the ones who have put themselves at risk and/or sacrificed their own lives for the sake of others. The military is involved in other activities besides blowing people up, you do know that right?

As someone who knows a lot of soldiers, I can tell you that I'm fairly confident most soldiers aren't criminals. What they are is usually poor and desperate, and for the most part they take a sense of pride and honor in working for their country.

Then, politicians take that sense of pride and honor and use it to send them to other countries and blow them to shit.

So really, please, aim your misguided anger at a more appropriate target, such as the people who actually put them in these places.

U.S. has disbanded the police after it took over, and it took a while to reform. It also booted out all Ba'ath party members from their posts. Given that membership for that was a requirement for most notable administrative positions in the country, it means that Americans have effectively booted out all capable administrators who knew how to keep things running smoothly, literally overnight.

The problem is that US went in and replaced the security structure (policy, army, etc.) of the Iraqi state with its own troops. However, in the process of doing so, they provided this only for some parts of the country.

Look at it this way: before US went in, Iraqi police (probably) protected the universities. After US went in, noone did. Yes, of course, the looters are the ones that actually stole the stuff, but US has its own part to blame in this, IMHO.

If we look at it the way you describe, for this particular argument it makes sense. If we looked no further it would seem like a good argument.

What of the some 200,000 Kurds that were killed? I guess they weren't a good enough reason to get rid of Saddam? If you could put a good number on exactly when enough is enough that would be wonderful. How many of the police were involved in those killing and how would you sort out the innocent from the guilty? Does it not seem better to remove all those from po

What of the some 200,000 Kurds that were killed? I guess they weren't a good enough reason to get rid of Saddam? If you could put a good number on exactly when enough is enough that would be wonderful. How many of the police were involved in those killing and how would you sort out the innocent from the guilty? Does it not seem better to remove all those from power and start from scratch?

Yes, the command structure should of course be put to the boot asap, BUT, that doesn't mean that it's a smart move to disband the police and army. After all the allies kept several German Army units under allied command active as police for several months after Germany surrendered after WWII to ensure an orderly change over. (And it's not as anybody thought they were angels in any way shape or form.)

The same should of course obviously have happened in Iraq as well. It's occupation 101. But the US "leadership" (and I use the term loosely) managed to forget what they knew back in 1945.

Of course, the Kurds in particular do not really enter into the equation, that situation was by no means an emergency. And of course, it was the invaders who had supported Sadam when he committed the worst atrocities in the eighties. In fact, Dick Chaney was the then envoy to Sadam and told him after the gassings of the Kurds to stop doing that because it made it more difficult to support him in the US. Indeed the senate on the news were so appalled that they passed legislation to ban any further support to Sadam. Legislation that Reagan promptly vetoed... So not keeping control of the armed forces both to use them to keep the order and to control their future behaviour and whereabouts because of some sudden concern for past crimes against the Kurdish people would make no sense what so ever given the previous policy. In fact quite the opposite. If you want to be able to properly deal with army and police you keep them in their barracks until you can get around to dealing with them. You don't just cut them lose

written about it, Thieves of Baghdad (9781582346458): by Matthew Bogdanos + William Patrick.

some iraqi troops used the museum as a base from which to fire at the invaders. so the US couldn't attack it, because it would have been completely wiped out by crossfire. but while those troops were based there, there was a massive theft. bogdanos was on a special unit that was sent purposely to try to secure the museum, and his team were able to recover a huge amount of material through somewhat ordinary police procedure (he had been a cop in new york), but his opinion is that there was probably an 'inside job' with someone in the iraqi bureaucracy looting the museum. i.e. in the case of the museum, the US did not have a good chance to secure it from the mobs... someone else had beaten the mobs to the punch.

Even in videogames, you can not develop technology to attack or defend your virtual community without taking care of the essentials for your population first: making sure they are fed, clothed, housed, and educated.

The Iraqi universities are not the only victims of a failure to recognize the importance of these social pillars.

The First Nations of Canada have many communities where even those basic needs are not properly managed and delivered to the people.

Heck, the whole COUNTRY of Canada suffers from a government which places an emphasis on imprisoning people for growing plants that the majority of the population wants to see legalized, taxed, and regulated in poll after poll.

Without an educated and comfortable population, a nation has no hope of competing on the global market and being a "real player." Education creates jobs, it creates technology, and it improves the processes of business and society. Even people like Marx recognized that society would evolve into a "communist" or "socialist" state as the people became educated and concerned about more than their own personal needs. (Marx never espoused a revolution such as Russia or China had; he was merely discussing where he saw society evolving to.)

The problem with the Harper Government's emphasis on their omnibus crime legislation is that it's taking away funding from education, retirement plans, and even medicine. It's a seriously screwed up set of priorities that man and our government has about where and how to spend our national and provincial budgets.

I don't think things are anywhere near that organized. Nor do I believe any nation is interested in being pigeon-holed in such a fashion. Sure China built it's finances on manufacturing, but they've invested heavily in education, housing, etc. with those monies and are trying to become an innovator, even going so far as to launch their own (effective!) space program.

I don't buy into the theories and paranoia about "The Bilderberg Group", "The Illuminati", or any other "secret society" running the world

That is what happens when you think cowboys are the epitome of culture. Still:

"In the months preceding the 2003 Iraq war, starting in December and January, various antiquities experts, including representatives from the American Council for Cultural Policy asked the Pentagon and the UK government to ensure the museum's safety from both combat and looting. Although promises were not made, U.S. forces did avoid bombing the site. On April 8, 2003 the last of the museum staff left the museum. Iraqi forces engaged U.S. forces from within the museum, as well as the nearby Special Republican Guard compound. Lt. Col. Eric Schwartz of the U.S. third Infantry Division stated that he was unable to enter the compound and secure it since they attempted to avoid returning fire at the building."

"According to museum officials the looters concentrated on the heart of the exhibition: "the Warka Vase, a Sumerian alabaster piece more than 5,000 years old; a bronze Uruk statue from the Acadian period, also 5,000 years old, which weighs 660 pounds; and the headless statue of Entemena. The Harp of Ur was torn apart by looters who removed its gold inlay."[3] Among the stolen artifacts is the Bassetki statue made out of bronze, a life-size statue of a young man, originally found in the village Basitke in the northern part of Iraq, an Acadian piece that goes back to 2300 B.C. and the stone statue of King Schalmanezer, from the eighth century B.C. In addition, the museum's aboveground storage rooms were looted; the exterior steel doors showed no signs of forced entry. Approximately 3,100 excavation site pieces (jars, vessels, pottery shards, etc.) were stolen, of which over 3,000 have been recovered. The thefts did not appear to be discriminating; for example, an entire shelf of fakes was stolen, while an adjacent shelf of much greater value was undisturbed."

Has everyone forgotten that the goal of the Iraq war was to get access to their oil? (And get revenge for the first Gulf War.) It was never about "weapons of mass destruction". The warmongers who came in with Bush (i.e. Cheney and his crew) were calling to overthrow Hussein the entire time Bill Clinton was in office. This is all well documented, even if it was never reported in the main stream press.

So Iraq was supposed to be a push over, and the US was going to install a puppet government that would do what the US oil cartel wanted. This would be a counterbalance to Saudi oil power. Remember Bush and Cheney are both originally oil men, and they wanted to go back to the "good old days" of western dominance of Middle Eastern oil production.

There was no planning about anything except securing the oil resources. They made no plans about securing any civil society, not just the schools. They didn't even have a real plan to secure any weapons, or even the known stockpiles of uranium ore (yellow cake) that Iraq had obtained. Access to weapons was one of the things that made the following civil war so bloody, and made it hard for the occupation forces to restore order.

All the top military US military leaders left right after the collapse of the Hussein regime because they knew that it was going to be a disaster, and they didn't want their legacy to be associated with the resulting fuckup. Something like half the administrators who went over in the first wave to try and restore some kind of government did not have passports! They had never been outside the US. A sizable chunk were people who had worked for the Bush/Cheney election campaign and had no relevant experience. In short, completely clueless.

The winner on all of this has been Iran. Their regional power and influence in the Arab world has increased dramatically. A lot of the weapons that were looted during the lawless fall of Iraq ended up in Iran, by the way. Meanwhile, the US has been mauled by asymmetrical warfare in both Iran and Afghanistan. They win, we loose. The unexpected result that thwarted Iran has been the Arab Spring, specifically the near civil war in Syria. Otherwise they are well on their way to being the dominant Gulf power. They may still come out on top.

So here is the bonus question: Why has GW Bush been the invisible man during the current presidential campaign? The US withdrew combat troops from Iran and Bush's name never came up. That's like talking about the US Civil War without talking about Lincoln, or WWII without FDR or Churchill or Stalin. You would expect that he would be asked about the end of the conflict he started. We get nothing.

Now the press is all over the perceived weakness of the Republican contenders. It would be reasonable for someone in the press to ask the last elected Republican candidate, even if all they got was a "no comment". Again, nothing. When the Republicans scream about how Obama hasn't fixed the economy, no one, Democrat or Republican talks about how the Bush administration screwed it all up. Remember TARP and it's bailout were authorized when Bush was still in office. If you look at the press accounts, it's like our economic mess fell from the sky without human intervention.

I'm wondering what will happen during the Republican convention. Will Bush show up? Whoever the nominee is, do you think they want to be seen with Bush on stage? It would be like being endorsed by Charlie Manson. If Bush is a no show, will the press ignore the non-event? I assume that McCain will be there, and Palin will get some air time, so how could they not talk about Bush?

The disappearance of GW Bush is emblematic of the memory hole that now dominates US political discourse. We don't need the complexities of New Speak or the Ministry of Truth. Collective amnesia in the media is so much more effective.

It seems to me that there should have been a big pile of detached hands somewhere. Martial Law and Civil Law are still supposed to work together.

Some people here deride religion, but real religion is good for society as a whole. (This does not mean that it should be imposed on people by Government.) Religion teaches moral values in a way that Law can't, and in the absence of Law, those without moral values will act in ways detrimental to society. Sharia would have been better than no civil law.

The oil fields had to be protected - you'll no doubt recall what Hussein did when he was forced out of Kuwait? Oil revenues were to provide much of the funding for reconstruction. The allies should have made plans to secure the oil fields and cultural facilities. Iraq has an amazing cultural heritage, that if encouraged, could help provide a basis for a proud nation - not to mention tourism when they stop shooting one another.

I'm assuming that you mean Iraq was not Islamic. Iraq has been Muslim since its conquest by Arabs in the 7th century. Anyway, even that would depend on how one defines 'Islamic'.

In Islamic countries, the term 'Islamic' implies the definition of whichever is the majority sect in that country. So in Iran, Bahrein, Iraq & Azerbaijan, it would mean Shia. In all other Islamic countries, it would mean Sunni. The Baath Party existed in order to give Muslim minorities in any Muslim country e.g. Sunnis in

Would this have happened if the USA didn't started this illegal war over some oil?
If the anwser is NO (and it is) then we should blame those money-hungry, trigger happy, backward idiots. Those responsible and those who supported it should be brought to justice in The Hague, just like any other warcriminal. But unfortunally our EU goverment are all bought up by those criminals and would rather eat their own kids than do what is right.

No, Iraq is worse off now than it was under Saddam. At least under Saddam there was security, basic services, good access to health care, and one of the best education systems in the middle east.

I'm not glorifying the bastard mind you, there were political kidnappings, executions and torture under Saddam. But this hasn't stopped, far from it, there has been an increase in political and ethnic violence, as well as corruption.

In other words, it's better to live under the rule of a ruthless dictator than it is

I was there in Jan 2005 and they had excellent hospitals (and doctors/nurses), an improving police force (that was learning about fingerprinting), and "basic services". I also toured some schools. Want to know what the school teachers told me? That under Saddam they made less than $10 a month, now they make $400 a month. Hmm, that sounds much better. I also had tea with a man who had his Doctorate in Physics but couldn't use a computer.

The big problems i saw centered around national identity and religions. For them, Family/Tribe was their Country and their town/village their allies. They didn't give a crap about the next town over. I visited a christian community who got along well with neighboring shia and sunni (and vice versa). The shia and sunni would kill each other on occasion for reasons i didn't understand. Most of the time it seemed related to something someone did years ago. The Iraqi people have long memories. Far better than Americans or Germans (the only other People i have lived with and know well).

As far as infrastructure went. The biggest failure i saw was in gasoline. Citizens would be lined up two days deep waiting in line for fuel. Fuel trucks were attacked/looted in-route to gas stations. Convoys protecting fuel trucks were bombed. You'd think a country like Iraq would have ZERO fuel problems. The second biggest failure was centralized electricity. I saw very little centralized electricity production. Instead of producing at a town/city level it was usually neighborhoods. There would be rat's nests of cables coming out of a generator and going to the nearby homes.

I'm partial to the Shia myself (who i spent the most time with). But before you say Iraq is worse off (because i doubt you've ever lived there), you should speak with an Iraqi about their views. I have. They have many interesting views on the subject.

That's right Saddam was a saint. What a crock. Sure, Saddam was not guilty of some of the things that circulate about him - but has was a bad azz. Removing him was a good thing - especially for his own citizens (the numbers killed in the Iraqi Civil War are still less than the numbers killed by Saddam during the Shia Uprising).

Nobody ever said Saddam was a saint. We all know he was a murderous arsehole. But he was the murderous arsehole in charge of what was probably the most enlightened middle eastern muslim country. If you wanted to invade a country over there because you wanted to free the people and end human rights abuses, start with Saudi Arabia.

The problem is all the US officer class gets very very well educated - you don't get to occupy a part of the world to play out "Grozny" in front of the press.
i.e. much international law exists that the USA held up during the cold war with glowing terms about "ensure their security", "educational" and "education of children".
So I guess they got around it via "education of children" and "institutions devoted" is not a university:)

So your in Iraq and take some "social responsibility" on the phone or as a local...
The phones are all signals intelligence to the USA, meetings of locals would be infiltrated or seen as real defiance.
So expect a day or night raid and then a nice trip to meet new people from around the world in smaller and small rooms.
"Social responsibility" really fits with the role of the Occupying Power.

so, you can just invade a country, take over its army and police, and then just leave it schools, museums, hospitals, universities unguarded ?

and you have a 4 digit userid too ! one would think that you would actually be a person who would have some amount of brain power - and hence, as it should be - some amount of accompanying culture.

yet you dont.

lets say at the time you got your uid, you didnt have the proper broad vision and humane understanding that every member of modern society should have. alright. happens. we all were young at one point.

and yet, close to a decade passed since you possibly got that uid. you were on the internet all the time, taking into account that you are geek, to have taken that uid from this site that long ago.

and yet, you have stayed still in the place you were in terms of culture, uttering the above bullshit to us at this point in 2012............

either die out, and get the fuck out of this planet, or, move forward. alternatively you can just shut the fuck up.

Good thing you said the "West". I can see how some might believe this, but it doesn't jive with the facts.

1) Iraq is "complicated". It is one part spin-off of Afghanistan, one part George W. Bush wanting to restore some honor for what happened to Daddy, with a dash of making vast profit for a few close friends/groups. This was the U.S. dragging others in.

2) Libya was a spin-off of the Arab Spring. The West, at least at face value, wanted the people to take power in Democracy. Libya was the safest place

King Abdullah II of Jordan, and his father King Hussein. They crafted one of the freest arab nations in the middle east. While they're track record probably isn't completely spotless, they are by NO definition political despots.

Outside of the oil embargo of 1973, through good times and bad, the Saudis have kept the oil flowing to the west, and that's the ball game that matters. The gulf oil countries didn't care too much about Al Qaeda before 9/11. At least they really didn't seem to care very much if their private citizens funded it. Since then, and especially after 2003, they've come down pretty hard on al-Qaeda, associated organizations, and their supporters.

I'm still confused - why don't we want Muslims to modernize? Africa and Asia I understand, because we get cheap sneakers and cell phones, but labor costs in the Middle East are completely detached from what we pay for oil.

The issue regarding the suppression on Middle Eastern Islamic countries (and the people) via despotic tyronnical regimes started long before the so-called "Rise of the East"

You gotta understand, long before World War I and World War II, the European countries had already had countless experiences on regional conflicts - from the conquer of Alexander the Great and his army to the various crusades to the Moors' conquer on Spain and Ottoman Empire's hold on many eastern European countries

From the above regional conflicts, the West got to know the people living just south east of Europe - the Middle Eastern/Persian tribes, and their very very aggressive (which often is on the verge of ruthlessness) Middle Eastern culture

That is why the one thing that keeps the West awakes at night after night, throughout the past millennium, wasn't India, wasn't Japan, wasn't even China, but the following:

"How to keep the Middle Eastern barbarians so busy that they do not have time to invade us"

After the disastrous World War II, the West had a common understanding - Make it so that the Middle East is mired in their own problems that they couldn't muster any effort to fight the West

As we can see, after the establishment of the United Nations, Middle East had plunged into one bloody conflict after another

And the regimes who hold power in the Middle Eastern countries ?

Either they are of the lunatic Islamic fringe - those ultra-conservative anti-modernists

Or they are of the Western puppets variety - such as the Anwar Sadat / Mubarak regime of Egypt, and the Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali regime of Tunisia

All these were designed so that no one would blame the West for what happens in Middle East.

After all, the West can publicly wash their hand clean and put all the blame squarely at those lunatic Muslims and their apparatus

Afghanistan is situated at the peripheral, not only geographically but also in terms of influence

2. What happened in Afghanistan that led to the invasion by America (and the West) is Omar, the leader of Taliban, permitted Osama bin Laden to use Afghanistan as a base for Al Queda, and Al Queda, for one reason or another, decided to launch 9/11 on America because America is nothing but a pussy.

Before Al Queda, before 9/11, America never touch Afghanistan. In fact, America (and the West) aided the Taliban (among other Mujahideen groups) in their rebel against the former USSR.

3. About Libya,

Please do not delude yourself that Gaddafi was removed by the "Libyan rebels" alone.

The world saw what happened there and we all know who was doing what.

Those "Libyan rebels" were nothing without the help from the Western powers.

And please do respect the intellect of other Slashdot users - please do not substitute "The Western Power" with "UN Forces"